156 - Katy Milkman: The Art and Science of Lasting Behavior Change
This week, Misha chats with Katy Milkman, the James G. Dinan Professor at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. A Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science and former president of the Society for Judgment and Decision Making, her research explores how insights from economics and psychology can be harnessed to change consequential behaviors for good. Her work, published in journals like Nature and PNAS, has been recognized by Thinkers50 as among the world’s most influ...
4 Juli 50min
155 - Julian Jara Ettinger: How we understand other minds
This week, Misha chats with Julian Jara-Ettinger, Associate Professor of Psychology and Computer Science at Yale University. Julian directs the Computational Social Cognition Lab, which aims to reveal the fundamental representations and computations that make complex human social behavior possible. His work combines computational modeling, developmental studies, and cross-cultural research to build a blueprint for more human-like social intelligence. In this episode, we discuss his recent pap...
20 Juni 38min
154 - Judith Fan: The wonders of playing with blocks (REAIR)
In this re-air episode from summer 2021 (one of our first!), Anjie chats with Judy Fan, Assistant Professor of Psychology at Stanford University. Judy’s research is at the intersection of computational neuroscience, cognitive science, and artificial intelligence. In this episode, she discusses a new line of research in her lab exploring how people learn about objects by trying to build them from scratch. She and her team recruited people online to play a game where they aimed to reconstruct v...
6 Juni 37min
153 - Mike North: Too old, too young—Is ageism the last acceptable bias?
This week, Enna chats with Dr. Mike North, Associate Professor of Management and Organizations, at NYU Stern School of Business and founding director of the AGE Initiative. Mike’s research focuses on the challenges and opportunities of today’s multigenerational workforce. His work has shaped public conversations on aging and has been featured in major media outlets including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, TIME, and so on. In our conversation, Mike shares stories from ...
22 Maj 1h 3min
152 - Laura Schulz: The journey of becoming a cognitive scientist and what babies and children have taught us about their cognition (REAIR)
Bella chats with professor Laura Schulz. Laura is a Professor of Cognitive Sciences in the Brain and Cognitive Sciences Department at MIT. She is also the director and principal investigator of the Early Childhood Cognition Lab. Laura’s research focuses on understanding the infrastructure of human cognition and how it’s constructed during early childhood. For example, Laura and her lab study children’s causal reasoning, social cognition, emotion understanding, and the connection between play ...
9 Maj 1h
151 - Robert Hawkins: Language, Collaboration, and Social Reasoning
This week, Misha chats with Robert Hawkins, Assistant Professor of Linguistics at Stanford University. Robert directs the Social Interaction Lab where he studies the cognitive mechanisms that enable human communication and collaboration. His interdisciplinary work combines interactive experiments with computational models to uncover how people flexibly coordinate with one another. In this episode, we discuss his recent paper on communication in reference games, exploring how lexical search an...
24 Apr 50min
150 - Kendrick Kay: Large-scale fMRI Datasets and What to Consider
In this episode, Elizabeth chats with Dr. Kendrick Kay, an Associate Professor in Radiology at University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. He directs the Computational Visual Neuroscience Laboratory, and aims to understand brain function by combining cognitive neuroscience, functional MRI methods, and computational neuroscience. In this episode, Kendrick shares his work on the groundbreaking Natural Scene Dataset and discusses the behind-the-scenes considerations that went into its creation. He als...
10 Apr 37min
149 - Jenna Wells: How Micro-Moments of Connection Shape Health and Happiness
This week, Enna chats with Dr. Jenna Wells, a professor in the Department of Psychology at Cornell University. Jenna’s research examines how emotion in close relationships contributes to mental and physical health over the life course, with a focus on late life. She is particularly interested in positive interpersonal processes and their associations with long-term health and well-being in individuals and dyads. In our conversation, Jenna shares her journey from aspiring therapist to emotion ...
27 Mars 53min
